The National Hurricane Center is giving the system a high chance (80 percent) of developing into a tropical storm by late this week as it moves through the central and eastern Bahamas. The forecast track for Gaston takes this system northwestward over the western Atlantic. There are no coastal watches or warnings associated with the storm, and it is not expected to make landfall.
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While some of the forecast models track the storm more to the west once it enters the Gulf, the impact on the Tampa Bay area could still be significant, Deskins said.
Thursday morning the low was producing gale-force winds over water to the north of Hispaniola, but the low continues to lack a well-defined center. If the weather system becomes an organized cyclone, it will be called Tropical Storm Hermine. This region has a 90% chance of development over the next 5 days and could become a tropical depression over the weekend. Hurricane Hunter aircraft have been scheduled to fly through the storm every six hours because of the potential threat to property and residents in South Florida.
Invest 99L, the unnamed tropical mess rumbling through the Caribbean, continues its uncertain journey toward the Gulf of Mexico.
The models that were persistent on this disturbance organizing into a storm and eventually a hurricane have backed-off considerably.
Tropical storms forming in the Atlantic have high chance of forming into a hurricane that crosses many areas in the United States and at highest peak from August to October.
Invest 99L was traveling west-northwest about 10 miles per hour and could cross Florida late Sunday or Monday and enter the Gulf as a tropical wave, according to the National Hurricane Center.
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The NHC announced on its website that Gaston had become “the third hurricane of the Atlantic Season”, in an updated statement to its last bulletin.
